


The Dying Light

by AgentBramble



Category: Destiny (Video Game)
Genre: Collaboration, Multi, Multi-Author, Own Character
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-12-22
Updated: 2014-12-22
Packaged: 2018-03-02 21:53:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,288
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2827343
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AgentBramble/pseuds/AgentBramble
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As more and more Guardians are killed, hunted by the forces of the Darkness, the more The Speaker realises that the numbers of Guardians are dwindling. Not enough can hold the Darkness at bay. Less and less Guardians are being born each day. When one such Guardian awakes in the shattered remains of his homeworld, only two others stand with him against the oncoming storm.<br/>But who are the mysterious Hounds? And why does this Guardian remember nothing? Who is he, really?</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Dying Light

**Author's Note:**

> So, this is the first chapter in what will hopefully be a long story. It's not too long and serves more as an introduction to my character than anything else. Two other authors will be working on this, as a fireteam in Destiny is formed of three separate Guardians, it only makes sense that three authors would write a story such as this. More details on that later.  
> Enjoy the first part,  
> Bramble

The hardest part about waking up is the resistance. The unconscious image that runs through your head that you really don’t want to leave. Your mind is so fixated upon the dream that you are having, that when your eyes begin to open, you mentally retaliate, escalating the dream further and further. It always ends though, whether you want it to or not. The first thing I was aware of was the cold. I could feel it, seeping into the bones beneath my skin as I shifted around on the cold floor. My eyes were still closed, my brain racing, images flying past my closed eyelids, too fast for me to comprehend them all. I wasn’t even sure if I wanted to understand them. It was so surreal, so beyond my reach, that I didn’t hesitate to open my eyes, to escape the images that I forgot the second they were past.

  
My eyes darted open, and I gasped, closing them instantly at the searing light that was shining directly into them, unashamedly. Groaning, I rolled away, a hand moving to my face to my closed eyelids, rubbing into them to somehow repair them from the likely irreversible damage of that unblinking light.

  
“Oops. Sorry.” I heard a slow voice ring out from behind me, sounding vaguely apologetic as I started, sitting up and immediately regretting my decision as my head collided with something hard. Blinking stars out of my vision, I took a good hard look at my surroundings. At first, confusion was the only emotion piercing the hazy after-effects of a long sleep. Hovering a few feet off the ground at eye level was what appeared to be a small, metallic eyeball, the lens contracting as it took me in. The voice appeared to have emanated from within. Was this thing some sort of camera? Was somebody else watching me?

  
Looking down, I looked to have been lying inside some form of storage cupboard, though I retained no memory of entering such a place. How unusual. Glancing further around yielded no further results from my memory. It looked to be some form of conference room; a large circular table sat in the centre of the rectangular room, some form of holographic screen was dangling forlornly from a cable at the other end. Chairs lay scattered around the entire area, very few still in serviceable use; most were broken beyond repair and appeared to feature several large slash marks. There were no windows of any kind and a door lay slightly ajar at the opposite end of the unknown location. Apparently where the disembodied eyeball had entered and subsequently found me.

  
Glancing over the small device again revealed a series of red stripes running along the apex of each of the pyramidal spikes that protruded from its body and a pair of purple arrowheads surrounding the cyan light of its eye. It twitched as it observed me, silently rotating various parts of its chassis and its eye seemingly narrowing as it looked me up and down. Feeling a rush of awkwardness at my silent observer, I glanced over myself to ensure that my modesty had been preserved.

  
At the sight of my body, I let out a gasp, my first vocalisation since I had awoken, falling backwards in shock at the sight of my hands. The tattered, blast-marked and scorched armour enclosing my body were nothing in my mind compared to the sight of my hands. My flesh and blood hands. Or, my formerly flesh and blood hands. Instead of the human hands I was expecting to see, I was instead greeted with the image of metal replicas of what should be human limbs, silver and gleaming, with what appeared to be rubber beneath and connecting them.

  
What the hell had someone done to me? Were my own hands, the human hands that I knew I had but no longer remembered underneath these metallic monstrosities?! As my ‘fingertips’ traced the plating and the yielding rubbery material, feeling the heat beneath and the touch sensors that were disturbed by the motions, I blinked. These weren’t false. What was I? Some form of cyborg?

  
Leaning against the wall, afraid of what I’d find, I delicately reached up and pressed my ‘hands’ to my face. Instead of flesh, they were met with a similar set of results, warm to the touch, shifting with my own facial changes and containing feeling, but still very much metal. I felt numb, cold spreading through me, as though a bucket of ice had flooded through my veins, if I even still had those. Sliding slowly down the wall, I buried my mutilated face in my hands, feeling some form of liquid, (coolant most likely, my mind bitterly spat) gather in what were probably LED’s and slide down my face. At least I could still feel the warmth in my hands; if they were cold, I might have completely broken down. A semblance of what I could vaguely remember being was still with me.

  
“Guardian?” That same voice spoke hesitantly, and I could vaguely see the light that was the only source of illumination within the darkened room grow somewhat brighter, as though the Eyeball had drifted closer. “Guardian?” It repeated, and I realised with a start that it was addressing me! What the hell was a ‘Guardian’? Why did it think I was one? Or was that my name?

  
“Are you alright?” The floating device spoke again, its eye dilating as I slowly stood up, leaning forwards in fascinated confusion, and examining it closely. The purple arrowheads were in fact made up of tiny lines of what appeared to be etched binary code. Who spent all their time decorating a floating eyeball? “Are you hurt?”

  
I blinked at the shade of concern that had now entered the voice, opening my mouth cautiously. “I’m-“ I cut myself off abruptly, gasping at the sound of my voice, which had echoed around the room from the walls. It was mine, or what I could remember of mine, but there was an undertone to it, a synthetic, robotic quality that led to a kind of echoing, mechanical effect, almost an entirely different layer of voice. It was another staggering blow; I really was some kind of cybernetic creature.

  
“What am I?” I whispered, hand moving to my throat in shock. The Eyeball hovering next to me slowly moved to my left shoulder, peering at me intently as I stared back at it. The question had been torn painfully from me, but I was left with no other option. With a memory that began all of three minutes ago, who else was I to trust?

  
It seemed to blink, the optic lights dimming for a brief moment. “You’re a Guardian. I’m your Ghost.” Was this supposed to mean something to me? I shook my head slightly, still unsure as to what he was talking about. It rotated its body again, whether in irritation, impatience or simply because it felt like it, I didn’t know. “You’re a weapon of the Light. I’m your guide. I found you.”  
I frowned, glancing back down at myself. The damaged armour began to make sense now. “I’m a soldier?” I needed to clarify what it meant by ‘weapon’. It dipped in what could only be called a shrug. Was that what I was, a soldier? Why couldn’t I remember it? I looked back at the ‘guide’ pleadingly.

  
“What do you mean ‘found me’? Where are we? Why can’t I remember anything?” It drew back sharply, surprise evidence in the sudden pause in its twitching. A second later, it was hovering closer to my face than it had before, looking me directly in the eyes. Eventually, it spoke.

  
“We’re in New Japan. Tokyo, to be precise.” The name stirred no new memories within me, no fresh inspiration, and no sudden epiphany; why was I in Japan and what was I here for? “You can’t remember anything?” it asked hesitantly, continuing at my nod of affirmation. My head drooped slightly in frustration and bitterness; why was I here?! “That isn’t supposed to happen. Guardian…” It paused again and dropped slightly, looking up at me. “You’ve been dead a long time. I brought you back.”

  
If anything could have stunned me beyond discovering I was some kind of robotic soldier and that I had no idea who I even was, that was it. It felt as though someone had just dropped a rock into my stomach and I couldn’t keep myself on my feet. The Ghost drew back in alarm as I fell to my knees, staring blankly at the floor. I was dead. Gone. I wasn’t supposed to be alive, to even exist anymore, and yet, for some reason, here I was. Standing in a ruined conference room, with a floating eyeball next to me, telling me about how I was back from beyond the grave. Talk about a fitting name. ‘Ghost’. It would have been funny if I didn’t have the taste of bile in my mouth.

  
Seconds later, the Ghost let out a squawk of surprise as I took a desperate swipe at it, blinded by the fluid leaking from my eyes. Flying away from me, its eye flared wide, it paused ten metres away, watching me much more cautiously as I got to my feet.

  
I couldn’t keep my rage and grief under control any longer. “Why would you bring me back?” The Ghost remained silent, watching me tentatively. “WHY?! I WAS DEAD!” I bellowed without warning, the shout torn from me. “I was dead…” Sinking back down, the anger that I had been feeling, the urge to smash the Ghost into pieces, was gone. Instead, sobs shook my frame as I found myself overwhelmed with grief and loss.

  
Everyone that I knew was gone. Both from life and from my memory. In a way, I was still dead, no Ghost could bring back who I once was now. I was still dead, in a way.

  
After several minutes of sitting in the dark, lost among the waves of painful emotion boiling away within me, I felt the Ghost’s small form gently nudge my hand. “Guardian?” it intoned quietly.

My hand reflexively closed into a tight fist, but it did not drift away. “Guardian? We need to go.” I still didn’t move. Why should I move? Dead men don’t walk. Or was it ‘tell no tales’?

  
After another few seconds of silence, the Ghost spoke even quieter, sounding almost childlike. “Please?” I sighed, glancing down at the small construct in resignation. I guess there isn’t any point in sticking around in some place I don’t even know. Slowly clambering to my feet, I glanced down at the little Ghost, blinking away any remnants of angry or bitter tears.

  
“Where do we go?” It tilted itself at a slight angle, glancing at the door that was at the opposite end of the room. Making my way through the darkness, wincing at the clanging, metallic sounds of my feet against the floor, I slowly pulled the door open and stepped into a hallway beyond, similarly deserted and clad in oppressing silence. The Ghost peered around, before drifting left.

“This way,” it intoned confidently, a flashlight piercing the corridor ahead. Hesitantly, I followed it through a winding labyrinth, no small talk breaching the silence between us. Perhaps it was still hesitant about me. I was certainly nervous talking to something that had admitted to resurrecting me from death.  
Eventually, a set of double doors that had what appeared to be frosted glass panels was pushed aside and I stopped dead. We had led ourselves to a balcony overlooking our current location. We were still inside the building, glass surrounding us and the countless balconies beneath us. The city that lay before us was staggering in its enormity. Darkened skyscrapers arced high into the sky, the Earth itself miles below us. I couldn’t even tell if the building around us touched the ground or if we quite literally floated above the clouds. Glass walkways, tiny specs to my enhanced vision, interlocked the buildings, and the small clusters were spaced out. What must have once been a busy monorail system stretched between the city in different levels, still and abandoned now.

  
“We need to reach a Jumpship and return to the tower,” the Ghost spoke quietly and I rolled my eyes, giving up hope of ever understanding a word it said. “Should be a few at the Spaceport.” Several clusters over, there stood a high arch, reaching even higher into the sky than any of the other buildings surrounding us, a reflective sheet of metal that must have been enormous, though it looked tiny at this distance. An elevator shaft, barely visible, could be seen emerging from its apex to reach into the dark expanse of space overhead. The stars didn’t provide much illumination and most of the power grids appeared to have failed.

  
“Do you have a name, Guardian?” I started at the voice beside me, looking down to see the Ghost watching me in unadulterated curiosity, apparently having gotten over the fear of being dismantled by this point. I raised an eyebrow, or whatever passed for one now.

  
“No, I don’t.” I looked back over the city, and at the approaching storm clouds on the horizon, closing in on us fast. “Not anymore. What about you?” It seemed surprised by the question, hesitating.

  
“It’s just ‘Ghost’ actually. We aren’t given names.” Worked for me. The more attached to this thing I got, the less I’d feel like dismantling it. And I was still very pissed at it.

  
What a way to come back from the dead.

**Author's Note:**

> Chapter One is completed! Hopefully it wasn't too cringe-worthy or confusing. Next chapter will be written by me again, as I'm still waiting on a reply from a potential third member of the group. Not sure when I'll post it, whenever I'm motivated enough, I guess. Until the next chapter, then.


End file.
